Hybrid Hard Drive in MacBook Pro

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Hybrid Hard Drive in MacBook Pro

I have a 2010 13" MacBook Pro running Lion with the standard 320GB 5400rpm drive installed, has anyone repleaced their drive with a Hybrid and had any issues? I was looking at the Seagate Momentus XT 2.5" 500GB 7200rpm Hybrid drive, but I don't want to buy it only to find that it's not compatible with the Mac hardware or Lion.

Website link: http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/laptops/laptop-hdd

Thanks in advance for your help.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.1)

Posted on Sep 6, 2011 5:30 PM

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Answer 1

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Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

Sep 6, 2011 5:32 PM in response to Captain_C

I have several machines using the Momentus XT, compatibility is fine, performance is not dramatically faster (especially if you use BootCamp regularly), but it is faster. As long as you're not expecting SSD speeds they are OK.

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Answer 2

Captain_C Author

Level 1

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Sep 6, 2011 5:37 PM in response to Csound1

Thanks for the quick reply .. I was looking to upgrade my drive mainly becasue 320GB isn't enough (I still like to have things locally not in the cloud) and thought that if I was upgrading may as well look at something faster and bigger. "Pure" SSD is still to pricey.

Thanks again!!

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Answer 3

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

Sep 6, 2011 5:47 PM in response to Captain_C

You're welcome

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Answer 4

Feb 3, 2012 8:06 AM in response to Csound1

Hi Csound1

there are some options

1) 320GB Seagate ST93205620AS Momentus XT Hybrid SSD, 2.5" 9.5mm SATA 3Gb/s 7200rpm 32MB Cache 11ms NCQ £86

2)500GB Western Digital WD5000BPKT Scorpio Black, 2.5", 9.5 mm, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 16MB Cache £73

3) 300GB Western Digital WD3000BLFS VelociRaptor, 2.5", 15 mm, SATA 3Gb/s, 10000rpm, 16MB Cache, 4.2ms £110

could you share your experiense.

1st is Hybrit and same rpm with 2nd only cache memory is bigger, but 2nd one is cheaper and bigger memory. Is that still worse to pay more for smaller memory?

also third one is bit expensive and smaller but much faster RPM than 1st and more than 2 times faster access time. what is a best choise (no money matter)

thanks at advance

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Answer 5

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

Feb 3, 2012 8:28 AM in response to BlasterPro

Buy the Scorpio (from that list), Raptor won't fit and there is not much performance difference between the Scorpio and the Momentus to make for the space lost.

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Answer 6

Captain_C Author

Level 1

10 points

Feb 3, 2012 3:23 PM in response to Csound1

I ended up going the Seagate Momentus XT 2.5" 500GB 7200rpm Hybrid drive and haven't had any issues at at all with the drive. Although, I have noticed a pretty big hit to my battery life - I think in just installing the drive it's taken 20-30mins off the time it last after a full charge.

But to be honest I can live with that - it was the performance and the storgae I was after.

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Answer 7

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

Feb 3, 2012 4:29 PM in response to Captain_C

Captain_C wrote:

I ended up going the Seagate Momentus XT 2.5" 500GB 7200rpm Hybrid drive and haven't had any issues at at all with the drive. Although, I have noticed a pretty big hit to my battery life - I think in just installing the drive it's taken 20-30mins off the time it last after a full charge.

But to be honest I can live with that - it was the performance and the storgae I was after.

That's odd, I fitted the same drives to 3 13" MBP's, battery life improved on all 3.

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